Their Dance
by Elysium66
Summary: She remembered him best when it was raining. She would dance amongst the trees in the storm and recall him moving with her. It was their dance.


**Disclaimer: Lyrics from** _Elisa's_ Dancing. The song was also the inspiration for this fic.

**Their Dance**

****

_My eyes are on you, they're on you_

_And you see that I can't stop shaking_

_So I'll put my arms around you, they're round you_

_And I know that I'll be leaving soon._

_So I'll put my arms around you, they're round,_

_And I hope that you won't hurt me_

_

* * *

_

The grand house stood defenceless in its cleft of land between a vast and dense wood and the swell of hillside. The windows and doors had all been thrown open, an invitation to the mighty gust of wind which collided with brick and mortar.

The gust broke through the barriers and whipped in and out of the empty channels of the house, in harmony with the rain that slapped a chant against the glass panes of open windows.

The old house was empty but for one soul. She stood barefoot on the rich mahogany boards, caring little as the icy wind bit into her ankles.

She did not feel the cold.

She swayed in rhythm with the sounds around her, dancing to the music of a memory.

Her opulent robes swished and flew about her feet as the chill air kissed the downy skin of her neck. Her eyes were closed as she swayed; the clap of thunder and the sporadic flash of light were known to her through the delicate skin of her eyelids.

She was not afraid.

The sounds and the taste of salt in the air was a balm to old wounds that would never close. She sought comfort in the rhythm of the rain as it unsheathed its power on the landscape.

This was their dance.

* * *

As children they would sneak out into the wood to play amidst the trees during a storm. He would hold her hand and swing her around and around until they were soaked through and delirious with laughter.

They would run back to the old house with a secret in their eyes, moving quickly before their mothers could find them.

He had been shy as a child, his wide ashy eyes hidden beneath a shock of dark hair. That was the way he had liked it.

But she had seen more in him.

She recalled the first time she had met him. He had visited with his mother and older brother. Mipsy the house elf had scolded her for trying to peak at them from over the banister before her hair had properly set.

But she did not care. She had wanted to see more of the Blacks.

Once Mipsy had deemed her ready, she had scurried down the staircase and onto the landing, to peek her head around the door and into the reading parlour where they were all seated.

The eldest boy had an air of cool disdain about him. He had looked bored, blowing his fringe out of his face and continually sighing. But the other boy had sat straight backed in his chair, his clear grey eyes scanning the room in avid curiosity.

She had curtsied and her mother introduced her to them.

'Ana,' she had said. 'This is Sirius.' Her gaze had travelled quickly back and forth between the two children.

But Ana had looked behind him to the other boy who sat quietly in his chair, looking out the window.

It had been some weeks later when she had seen him again. They had many people over to the house and her mother had been running frantic all evening. When Mipsy had been distracted, Ana had run from the house to the edge of the wood, twirling in her best dress as she laughed gaily to herself.

It looked like rain that night.

She giggled when she felt the first droplet kiss the inside of her wrist, a promise of more to come.

'What are you doing?' It had been him, Regulus. She thought his name suited him well.

She sized him up before grinning, 'I'm going in there.'

He had looked wearily passed her into the dense forest. 'You really shouldn't do that, you know.'

'You're not going to tell on me are you?' Her eyes had widened in mild horror.

He looked down at his feet before shaking his head. She smiled shyly at him before asking, 'Would you like to come with me?'

He had shaken his head furiously. No. So she nodded and whispered, 'Goodbye then, Regulus,' and turned to creep through the gnarled branches.

She could hear the rustle of his robes behind her. When she had turned around to look at him questioningly, he had just shrugged and looked away. The rain had poured that night and she had twirled beneath the downpour and his heavy gaze.

He had been so serious then. But over time she had worn him down.

* * *

The woman squeezed her eyes further shut and shook her head, allowing the tumble of flaxen curls to fall upon her breast. She clutched at the fabric of her robe, refusing to be pulled from the embrace of her reverie.

* * *

She had been so excited when the time came to go away to school. He was only a few months younger than her and as such she knew they would be in the same year. She had imagined the adventures they would have and would squeal in excited delirium so that Mipsy would mutter about her incessant behaviour all the day long.

And again, she did not care.

But he had reverted to his careful self when they were at school. He would follow about the Slytherin boys, always looking a little lost to her. He did it because he thought he should, she had been sure of it. And she would watch him when he did not realise.

But despite their silence they would share secret smiles and glances of the promise of summer.

When the first storm of the year danced around the castle, she sat by the window watching the beautiful terror it reigned. She felt his gaze upon her back that whole evening.

She had thought perhaps he had outgrown their games. But he had not.

Every summer and every winter when they were on break, the Blacks would visit her at her home. And each time Regulus and Ana would sneak out for stolen moments. And he would watch her and laugh and smile until his eyes would crinkle unexpectedly.

But when they would return to the castle for term, he would watch her silently again.

As they grew older he kept more secrets. There were so many times when she would gaze openly at him, willing him to unload his troubled thoughts upon her. And so many times she thought he nearly did.

She found herself as fascinated with him as she had been when a child. There had been so many moments when her head would rush as his fingers brushed over hers. When he held her smaller hand in the palm of his she wished her would not let go.

But after a while he always did.

Her parents meant her for Sirius, she knew. That was why the Blacks so regularly visited. But she barely knew the eldest son and he held very little regard for her. Yet their parents could not be swayed from their intent.

No one knew of her special friendship with Regulus. He thought it better that way. He had always deferred to his family's preferences.

She had learnt that very quickly.

Although he never said anything about his thoughts on the matter, he would watch her and his brother very closely whenever they would visit. She could always tell when he was watching her. The beat of her heart would pulse a little quicker and her skin would tingle to the touch.

She thought perhaps he had never realised. Had he believed her to be interested in his brother? The question had haunted her. But he had never said.

There were so many things he never said.

But she had always thought she knew him better than that, on a whole other level than she knew anyone else, one where the words were not required.

Everything had changed irrevocably when Sirius had left. She did not know much about why it had happened or how it had come about. No one would talk about it. Even Regulus. _Especially_ Regulus.

She had felt a pressure lifted from her shoulders at the news. She would not be made to marry him. Ana did not think that at that age she should have been concerned with thoughts of marrying _anyone_. But pureblood families always secured a good marriage for their children at a young age.

By the time she approached her 16th birthday, she knew a subtle difference in herself. She was almost a woman and as such her feelings for her childhood friend too had grown. But since the departure of his brother he had retreated further into himself so that she barely knew him behind the façade.

Regulus, she knew, felt the burden of family. As such he had set himself the unachievable task of making up for Sirius' wrong doings in the eyes of his parents.

She had heard rumours, whispers of those whom he associated with and what they did. She could not bear to think of him involved in it all. He was a gentle soul, not made for fights such as those.

But he feared being over shadowed by the memory of his brother above all else.

She had not seen him in months until that night. The storm had brewed and darkened the clouds overhead. Letting her hair cascade over her robes, she pulled her midnight blue cloak over her shoulders and ran out the back door.

The cloak ran like ink over her form, pooling around her like twilight. She slipped through the familiar branches pausing only to un-snag the fabric which caught on a particularly unruly branch. Ana made her way to the small opening in the trees.

It was their place, but she still went there on nights liked that, to dance alone in the darkness.

She had not expected him to be there, but he was. He stood in the centre of the clearing, his head turned up to gaze at the angry cluster of clouds. He had turned at a noise and gazed at her for a long moment, causing the breath to seize in her chest.

'I knew you would come here tonight.' A ghost of a smile caressed his lips as he gestured to the sky above.

She broke her stunned silence. 'But what are you doing here, Regulus? I thought you had outgrown such things.'

Her words hung in the air and she noted a strain creeping around his eyes. He moved toward her then, trying in vain to control the evident clenching of his jaw.

'You have no idea what you're talking about, Ana.'

She swallowed and bit gently into the pillow of her lip. As she lowered her gaze from his she felt the first droplets of rain catch in the length of her lashes.

'Ana,' he whispered, 'look at me.'

She hated when he did that, used her name against her. She had always secretly loved the way his lips would form the word. So gently, as though it were a caress. He never said it often enough, though.

She glanced up at him. 'Who are you Regulus? I… I've heard things and I-'

He had moved so quickly, gripping her upper arms. He held her so near to him that she had to tilt her head to see his face.

'I don't want you to think about those things,' he whispered. 'Can we just forget – for now, I mean. Just let's pretend… for a moment… let it be the way it was when we were kids.'

His eyes pleaded with her. His large light grey orbs had darkened to a Prussian blue in the dusk.

She shook her head. 'No, Regulus. You know I can't do that. You cannot pretend to me it's not happening.' She blinked rapidly to control the build up of moisture behind her lids. 'Don't close me out as you have been,' she whispered. 'I don't hear from you for months. Rumours circulate and now… you come here and expect it all to be ok?'

She was shaking visibly, not from the cold, even though her skin shone with the glisten of light rain. He stared at her, his Adam's apple bobbing. The rain poured thicker and faster then, and she had to gaze up at him through lowered lashes so as to keep her vision clear of rain.

His hold tightened and loosened and her breathing seemed to cease in that still moment when all she was aware of was him.

Her skin was charged as the rain thundered around them. She had known him for so long, had memorised every feature of his face – less perfect than his brother's and so much more haunting in her eyes.

Yet she had never seen him this close to, she could see every detail. Her eyes traced the small cleft in his lower lip rising and falling as he expelled cold air. His hair was plastered across his brow, falling to cover his eyes. She hated not to see his eyes.

In an unconscious gesture, she raised a hand to brush the strands aside. He breathed in loudly and she raised her eyes to his, the pupils of which were dilated so that they appeared dark as obsidian.

Watching his expression, she drew a finger across his brow and along the line of his Roman nose, it was strong and aristocratic. Her finger traced the line of his jaw and brushed his lip. It was soft and hard at the same time.

She had been shaking, as had he – her childhood friend.

'Reg-'

'Shhh,' he hushed her and shook his head before leaning down to rest his forehead against hers. Their noses touched and she closed her eyes gently, basking in the feel of him flush with her. Their noses brushed again and she opened her eyes to see his mouth a breath away. Her lips parted as did his and a whisper passed through the space between them.

The hesitation, the tension and indecision tickled her spine. She was caught wondering whether they would cross the boundary as she had thought they never would, when his lips slanted across hers.

They were tender at first, the kiss laden with innocence and uncertainty.

She opened her mouth to him and he gripped her tighter and closer in the rain as his fingers, wet and numb, slid over her skin. One arm lowered to her back to brace her against him, the other raising upward to slide through her hair and cup the delicate nape of her neck.

'I'll make it right,' he whispered. 'I'm sorry. I'll make it right, I promise.'

She silenced him again and squirmed to feel his skin against hers. They were frantic and rushed, their movements charged.

With shaking limbs he released her cloak from around her shoulders, to lay it on the ground. They stood apart for a moment, swallowing realisation.

She nodded and he pulled her to him once more. Her dress was soaked through and he flushed at the sight. Falling to his knees, he laid her gently as a doll on the make-shift rug, whispering urgently and unconsciously in her ear.

She would always remember that night.

Hours later he had brought her back up to the house and left her with a long goodbye and a promise. She had not known whether to believe him as he wiped away her tears before flying off.

That moment had reeked of finality.

* * *

The woman paused in her movements as salted pearls tracked her cheeks. Her hands bunched further into the skirts of her robe as she tried to rein them in.

It had rained this night each year since that day. And she had been engulfed in the pain and the memories on each of those seven anniversaries.

She could bear it no longer.

The woman did not pause to draw a cloak about her shoulders before she rushed from the room and out the backdoor, as she had so many times before. Rain slashed at her skin and drenched her dress. Her long hair was plastered to her neck as she ran through the uncut grass to the fringe of the forest.

He had not returned after that night. The news of his fate had reached her mother shortly thereafter. She had been hollow to hear it.

He had not come back to her, and yet his memory haunted her steps. She was as a ghost after that.

Climbing through the branches, bleary eyed from tears and rain, she reached the clearing and threw herself to the sopping ground. Her hands clenched at the grass, her pain still raw. Her body wracked with sobs through the night, as thunder and lightening slashed the trees surrounding, until her formed stilled and the last breath of life had left her.

And there was no more pain and there was no more loneliness.

She had danced her final dance.


End file.
